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Imagine that you wake up one morning to the shrivel sound of a small voice, crying as though someone knocked its little head against a hard wall. Aghast with utter dismay and a little bit of shock you suffer yourself and drag your still too tired feet out of bed; you proceed straight to your sun-lit porch, ignoring the shining rays of the already too bright sun. Then you see her, the baby. She’s hidden in the moistness of the grass outside your window, kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs. “Who would have done such a thing?” you silently ask yourself, secretly cursing the mother of the child. And so you put on something more than just your boy shorts and start running down the spiral staircase.

Immediately you see her you stop on your tracks, wondering if this whole drama is even real. But then she cries again, and your heart does a double flip because something in you is unraveling. With the love of God invested in you, you carry this child and hold her close to make her stop crying. And then you notice her eyes…such beautiful brown eyes. You start to notice other things too, like the way her hair curls to the tip of her neck…or even the way her mouth starts to curve into a smile. And that’s just it for you. Gosh, is she beautiful? Another beautiful child has been born, here and now, in this very moment. Another child with great talent to give to the world. Another Bill Gates, or another Obama. Another Ghandi or another Ralph Waldo Emerson. Another Abraham Lincoln or another Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. You wouldn’t know yet unless you see her grow. You wouldn’t know yet, would you?

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Gone are the days when we said “the beautiful ones are not yet born,” for they are within our midst today. Yes, the beautiful ones are you and I. If you don’t believe it, look at yourself. The funny thing is that we are born in every single generation.

See, God don’t make ugly. That’s undoubtedly my resounding theme for this year. There’s something ‘different’ in each of us, and it’s not a coincidence either. So I am beautiful, and you are beautiful. The question is whether you know it or not. If you don’t know it yet, please look around you and at this economy. Were you created for something more? Were you created to bring something good into this world? I guess it was President John F. Kennedy who said “ask not what your Country can do for you, but what you can do for your Country.” Now, let me dare to say it God’s way: “Don’t question or doubt that God created you as a marvel and a beauty, but find that beauty in the seasons of your life.”

Josiah was on the edge about something. He put the canvas on the stand and took out the paint brush from the box. He stood up. He walked a few inches away from where the canvas was standing. For the next one minute, his eyes were staring at his unfinished piece. But his mind was on a rampant rage. The kind of fiery rage that could not be quenched with any calming liquids.

He paced up and down the room and finally went to stand by his open window. His apartment was hidden in one of the most beautiful districts in Paris. Right here, from his window, he could see what he personally called a "triumphant reminder." The Arc de Triomphe stood tall, a structure twice the size of the famous Roman Arch of Constantine. The first day he set his eyes on it, he was afraid. Slowly, he came to realize that his rigid fright was not because the sight of the arc was daunting, but because its name was haunting: Arc de Triomphe meant Arc of victory. The names of unsung French heroes, soldiers who died at war, as well as 558 generals, were inscribed on the body of the structure.

Somehow, each time he looked at the arc, he was not reminded of the soldiers. Rather, he was reminded of himself. He already felt like a dead man, but he was just walking in a living body. A physically incapacitated man living in a fit muscular body. But yet, each time as he looked on at the structure, he knew that it stood there to constantly remind him that he had victory over death. It was reminding him that he could become anything he wanted if he could just put his mind to it. It was reminding him that he had a mission here on earth, to paint and set the emotions of the world ablaze. Yet, he could not bear the feeling of being alive. He was a self-killer.

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Some people have blamed their sad fates on witches and wizards, like that story of those witch children which was all over the blogosphere a while back. Some have blamed their fates on their forefathers, saying that their lives are cursed. Some have no way to trace their fate, but yet they just kill themselves for free. They are self killers!

But do you know that not every bad fate is as a result of someone cursing you? Or do you not know that a curse without a cause cannot alight (Proverbs 26:2)? Do you know that if God has not spoken a curse over your life no curse can stand against you? Did you know that if God is for you, no one else can be against you (Romans 8:28-31)?.Most times, we are the ones who kill our own dreams and visions. Most times, we are the ones who are our own killers. We have a dream, but we are not bold enough to accomplish it. For you who is reading, please stop waiting for someone to undo the curse or to bless you...you need to push yourself now. Yes, you can do it. Let whoever lied to you be a liar and God be true. Don't be a killer, be a life-giver. Give yourself life and open your own hand to receive your blessings from God. Do not hold yourself a prisoner when no one has put you in chains. Be released to live your dreams today. May God order your steps in the right direction of your destiny, in Jesus Name. Amen :)

"Alas, this man will never do anything, because he is already thinking of the end before he has even begun"- Pope Leo X.

Down, down, and under. It was inevitable, she was sinking. No one could prevent the ship wreck. The winds were beginning to blow, and so she willingly gave herself over to the gods of the seas. They would decide her fate tonight. Yet, inside her she had already selected her own destiny. She had already chosen to drown. Even when the gods of the sea, whom she had chosen to believe, had not yet made up their minds concerning her.

But she was already drowning...deep, deep...way down under.

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Every second, someone drowns. It comes upon them like an unexpected thief in the night. Some have drowned due to their own mistakes or errors, while others have drowned from chasing things which should be chasing after them instead. Some have drowned because of a lack of knowledge, and others have drowned because of too much knowledge. But there is another category of drowning: those who out rightly "choose" to drown. They choose to drown because life makes them bitter. They choose to drown, because, heck...they want to! They take a look at life and they choose to drown. They take a look at what life has to offer, and then in the midst of crazy circumstances they choose to see their cups half-empty, rather than half-full. Rather than dream to become the majestic princes riding on horses, they settle for becoming the very slaves who walk the horses (Ecclesiastes 10:7). When they stare at the beauty of the sun, they just see the sun...they do not see God behind the sun.

Drowning could be a choice, even when we think it is not. We may think that oh, the things we face daily are different from what others face. But the thing is that your shoes hurt in a different place than where someone else's shoes hurt. But you don't know where..If drowningis a choice, then we must choose something else. We must burst through the waters and reach for the arms of the life guard. We must raise our hands up and kick our feet violently, like a huge fish does when it is gasping for air on dry land. Oh, no no no...it doesn't just sit down there and give up the ghost...it shakes and shakes until the entire earth beneath it begins to shake too. But we give up too fast. We, on the other hand, are fast to determine that there is no pulse left in our bodies. We are sometimes too fast to pronounce the death sentence.

And yet, the Master Potter works on His wheel...tirelessly...to shape and remold each of us that He has created.

I imagine that each day He chooses to remold my eyes...to open them so that they can see the bigger picture. I imagine that He shapes my heart and my mind to know and understand what 'hope' means. To understand that when I am given the choice between drowning and hoping, that I choose HOPE.

It was in exactly the same way the people of the city woke up that morning...

... in high and cheerful spirits, ready to begin the day, that the T-shirt at the apparels store also woke up. The sun woke up and said hello, and the T-shirt replied in the same excitable fashion. In fact, it got more excited when the big double doors were pushed open and the people came in like a swarm of bees. And so, it stretched and became poised to show off its designer's label. It was a classic design, skillfully woven together by the best of the best. It was confident that someone rich and famous, or just anyone with a sense of style and an extreme taste for quality would stop, stare at it, and then wisely add it to his or her shopping cart. It only made sense.

So, the people came and yes, they did touch it.In fact, they touched it a little bit too much. Someone smiled at it, another made a gesture towards it, and oh, can you imagine? Someone even smelled its fabric. But the funny thing was that no one actually put it in their shopping cart. No one! Rather, as a woman fondled and selected its neighbor, it was cast down and trampled upon by her dirty heels. So it was that in the same morning it was transformed from a very clean label to a dirty one. Oh, did I tell you that more people came by? But no one picked it up. They kept stepping on it. They kept ignoring it.

The end of the day came and the moon came to say hello too. This time the shirt did not respond. It felt neglected, as though its high expectations had been severely dashed. But just then, the owner of the store came to put things in order. And so, his eyes caught this T-shirt looking dejected on the floor. So he picked it up. He dusted it and took it to a secret place for washing and renewing. "Tomorrow, you will look even more amazing," he whispered to it, even as he transformed the shirt to the glory it deserved.

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Today, I woke up at about 6.30am in the morning while the sun wasn't even up. Didn't get a chance to say 'hello' to the sun. Lol. But at least God said hello. He asked me if I knew what getting dirty meant? Yes, getting dirty as in being trampled upon and maybe being splashed with some elements of very dirty musty mud.

This year, some will get really dirty for God. It is such a great dream to be unique, to be peculiar, and to count for something MORE (just like the last post of this blog). But it's a process. You have to be willing to let go of everything and everyone. You have to be willing to lose something to gain something more precious. You have to be willing to get dirty. Trampled upon.

There are a lot of paradoxes with our Creator. Some may think that the way up is to climb a flight of stairs, but in God's dictionary the way up is actually down. And after you've gone down to do the dirty work, the end thereof will be blessings and rewards, a better glory than your past. Are you willing to be a label? Even more than that, are you willing to risk being called the "dirty label?"

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it," Jesus in Matthew 10:39